Social networking sites have become popular with Internet users. Users of social networking sites often have the ability to update a status associated with a user account to inform members of their social network of a current thought, activity, event, or the like. In general, status updates can be directed to user-generated content, links to other content, and/or commercial content. For example, a user may update a status to reflect a thought, a mood, an event, or to share information such as a link, document, or other resource with members of the user's social network. Members of the user's social network are typically able to access the user-generated content, however, and the links to the other content. In the case of commercial content, a subscription or purchase may be required for a member of a user's social network to view or access the content posted by the user. For example, if a user posts a link to an article or other content for which a subscription is required, the link to the content may be of little or no interest to a member of the social network without such a subscription.
One common mechanism for circumventing subscription requirements includes copying and pasting article contents into a status update. Another common mechanism includes a user sharing his or her account login information associated with a subscription required to view the shared content with members of his or her social network to allow the members of the social network to access the commercial content. These and other approaches may violate not only user agreements associated with the shared commercial content, but also may violate copyright laws.
Similarly, a social networking site user may wish to share content controlled by various access control mechanisms, e.g., digital rights management (DRM) technologies. For example, a user may wish to share multimedia content such as music files, videos, and electronic books (“multimedia content”) in addition to articles, web pages, and the like. Multimedia content, as well as other content, may be digitally tracked, managed, and/or controlled to reduce the incidence of unlawful and/or unauthorized use of the content. As users become more aware of copyright laws and DRM control mechanisms, their ability and/or willingness to share multimedia content may be limited.
It is with respect to these and other considerations that the disclosure made herein is presented.